Communities of Practice in Campus Recreation: A Framework for Developing Student Intramural Officials

TL;DRAbstract

Campus intramural sports officials often participate in external officiating experiences beyond campus intramural contests, such as community sport programs, middle and high school sports, and even intercollegiate sports. While these external opportunities may enhance an official's skills and abilities, there are concerns that the demand from external agencies and competing salaries result in campus intramural programs being left with underdeveloped officials. This in turn contributes to the critique that encouraging external officiating experiences does not contribute to the college or university mission of learning, research, and professional development. The purpose of this article is to present a justification why campus intramural sports officials should engage in sports officiating experiences beyond campus intramural and extramural contests. A conceptual framework known as Communities of Practice (Wenger, 1998) is presented to illustrate how external officiating experiences may

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